-Without Ishiro Honda, we would not have had Godzilla. He was the one who directed the very first Gojira black and white. He was a magician of cinema who made the impossible possible. He was a friend of Akira Kurosawa. To the eyes of the Japanese kids in 60', the name of Ishiro Honda was more brilliant than that of his worldly known friend.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Some might say Murasaki shikibu (Lady Murasaki) who wrote «the Tale of Genji».

Other might say Yukio Mishima who committed Harakiri.

Haruki Murakami, the author of «Norwegian Wood», is certainly an up-and-coming star in Japanese literature.

It is a question without one definite answer, isn't it?

So, let's paraphrase the question.

Which Japanese novelist might you miss the most if he or she had not written any works?

My answer is Yasunari Kawabata and I guess that many fans of Japanese literature share the opinion.

Before his «Snow Country», the Japanese word Geisha was a pejorative. After his invention of the heroine Komako, the word has gained some divine power.

Komako the Onsen geisha (hot spa geisha) is the symbol of the pure and sacred womanhood in the collective consciousness of many Japanese and non-Japanese men and women.

"Not all the Japanese, though", I have to admit.

Mishima might have preferred a samurai boy to a geisha girl. Murakami may fancy a glass of gin and tonic with the author of «the Cather in the Rye» more than having Sake with Kawabata, served by a Komako at a snowy onsen ryokan (Japanese style inn).

But look at Japanese boys hanging around Akihabara who adore girls in a Maid Cafe. Aren't they looking for a Komako in a fantasized maid's cutsie wootsie costume?

Thank you, Mr. Kawabata. We are glad that you wrote it.

No matter how much Mishima tried to create his public image resembling the photo, his classmates at Gakushuin high school know who he was. Tough luck, Mishima-san.

-Osamu Dazai's expressions in Japanese seem to be more difficult to translate into another language, compared to, for example, those of Yukio Mishima. Dazai's words have got rhythm. They are the animated souls of his ancestors. «No Longer Human» has a Japanese title «Ningen Shikkaku人間失格». It literally means "human" "disqualification". If you are qualified as a human, we cry out "Ningen Goukaku!"

-Ran, a war or a revolt; a commotion or a chaos. Kurosawa's Ran is beautifully organized. You have a yellow team, a red team, and a blue team. It was not like that in the real history, but it is easier to distinguish one from another especially if you are not familiar with the Japanese samurai era.

-Tatsuo Kimura on the left, an Aikido budoka of Daito-ryu, one of the highest disciples of late Yukiyoshi Sagawa, is the author of «Transparent Power». Some people say that Sagawa may be the greatest budoka ever lived in Japan, who might be much stronger than Miyamoto Musashi, the author of «The Book of Five Rings». Tatsuo Kimura on the right, a mathematician of the highest degree, working with Fourier transforms and Reimann's zeta function, is a professor at University of Tsukuba and the author of Introduction to Prehomogeneous Vector Spaces (Translations of Mathematical Monographs). Are they the same person? Yes, they are. If you are scientifically skeptical about Aikido, ask this genius.

-I don't know if they are the best collections, but at least they are complete collections. Akira Kurosawa's films and Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix. The latter could be a very good introduction to understand oriental philosophies.

-Yasunari Kawabata, the author of Snow Country and a Nobel prize winner, Hiroshi Yamauchi, the ex-president of Nintendo Corp., and Ichiro Ozawa, a Democratic Party of Japan member, have one thing in common. All of them adore playing the game of Go. Kawabata wrote a novel about the last game of a Go master.

We always need innovation and open-mindedness, but, if you put the ginger between the rice and the fish at a high class Sushi establishment in Japan, chances are that they will ask you to leave unless your Japanese friend explain to the Sushi chef that you are an important political figure from Timbuktu.

In a Tokyo-style Sushi bar, ginger is served to erase the aftertaste between a piece of Sushi and another.

At a belt-conveyer Sushi bar, they are less strict, and almost all reasonable bad manners are accepted, including belching and slurping the soup. Nevertheless, talking too loud and sprinkling saliva on the small dishes on the belt-conveyer is considered offensive. Besides, please do not forget that, once you have taken a dish with sushi from the belt-conveyer, you are not allowed to bring it back on it. It is not a question of manners, but it is a question of hygiene.

-Kyogen 狂言 literally means «crazy words». Only a fool can tell the truth, Sir William? It doesn't matter if it is true or not. Let's laugh. Just laugh like a fool or a crazy Kyogen actor. This young gentle man in the photo above is a well-know Kyogen actor. You cannot become a Kyogen actor. You have to born as the scion of a Kyogen family. A nice can of coffee he sells might warm you up on a cold day. A nice laughter of a Kyogen actor will loosen your Cartesian mind a bit.

-Kyoka Izumi was one of the Bun-shi 文士, which means «a samurai who has a pen instead of a sword» in the post-samurai and modern era in Japan. He wrote a novel about mysterious seduction between a phantom woman and a monk. It is called Koya Hijiri 高野聖 / Saint of Mt. Koya. Hijiri 聖 means sacred. Therefore, Seijin 聖人 in Tao Te Ching literally means a sacred person. In the film on the left, Seijun Suzuki, a magician of visual images, made a film based on one of Kyoka Izumi's works.

-Junko Miyashita once was one of the most under-rated Japanese actresses because she started her career with films publicly despised. In the film on the right, she plays Abe, Sada (Abe is her family name). She was the famous woman who cut the male urinal organ of her lover. Nagisa Oshima made a film out of her life and Quincy Jones composed a song out of the film.

-In a rough understanding; Tariki 他力 (other-power) = Shinran; Jiriki 自力 (self-power) = Dogen; Some think that Jiriki and Tariki are contrary to each other. Not exactly. If you know that "Self" is just a concept and does not exist. The idea of Tariki is a very useful tool to reduce your resistance. Besides, Hiroyuki Itsuki, a good novelist, talks about his experience of evacuation from Manchuria at the end of WW2, relating it to Tariki of Amida.

-Misora Hibari was a Judy Garland of Japan. On the left, "musume" means a daughter or a girl. "Tabigasa" literally means a Japanese straw hat for travelling. So, the song is about a young woman travelling alone. On the right, the kanji character for "Yawara" is the same one for Ju of Judo. Judo is "yawara no michi / the soft Tao".

Third, then, you will realize that the world, including your own self, is a hologram. Don't look down on it because it is a manifestation of the fundamental energy Tao. That's why it is called everything or all.

If you can love the world, you don't have to listen to all the gibberish, mine included.

-On the photo of «In Praise of Shadows», can you see a katakana character Mu ム? Shadows are nothing. Shadows are plenty. Junichiro Tanizaki, one of the most prominent writers in modern Japan, explains the importance of shadows. There is another important one-syllable expression Ma 間. It means space/void.

-One of the biggest contributions to Japanese literature by Master Dogen is to have written a chapter of Hokke Ten Hokke 法華転法華 in Shobogenzo 正法眼蔵. It is a literary equivalent to the Tibetan prayer wheel. Please look at the five Kanji characters carefully. It is, in fact, two sets of the identical pair connected by the character 転 [ten], which means "to change / to turn". It is a visual presentation of the prayer wheel. Traditionally, the Japanese are awed by Kotodama 言霊, the spirits of words, in other words, the phonetical aspests of their expressions. Zen monks and their calligraphy changed the tendency a little.

-They are based on a true story. In 1950 Kinkaku-ji / Golden Pavilion was burnt down. A young monk set fire. Yukio Mishima thought the temple was too beautiful for the monk to face. Another Japanese writer Tsutomu Minakami made up a totally different story. The young monk was having affair with a girl from the same village, who was now working in the quarter Gobancho, a district of pleasure.

-Dogen means "the root of Tao". Shobogenzo Zuimonki (the book on the right) was not written by the master himself. It is much easier to understand. There are quite a few English translations of Shobogenzo. They may be helpful to understand Dogen's teachings, but I cannot recommend any, the one on the left included. My best and honest recommendation is, though I know it is too demanding, to learn Japanese and read the original. A Japanese man can learn English and read Shakespeare. Why can't an English-speaking person learn Japanese and read Dogen? Shobogenzo is written in old Chinese and Japanese. It is an amazing mixture of two different grammars. While Chinese has a word order closer to English (in principle, Subject - Verb - Object and others), Japanese has the one completely different from English (Subjets, Object, or others followed by a suffix which functions as a preposition - Verb often followed by suffixes which function as an auxiliary verb or "not") Dogen is truly a Jackson Pollock of Japanese literature.

-He initiated a land reform in Japan. Some rich got poorer. Some poor got richer. Other rich stayed the same. Other poor stayed the same. The Japanese middle class enjoyed Hello Kitty and Mario Brothers some decades later.

Rozalia Alone

From Romania to France to Brazil, young Rozalia travels. Being half Jewish and half Christian, she narrowly escapes from inhumane atrocities. What does she want? Her soul just wants to fly like a sensual angel and look for a heavenly beach where people smile and dance without fear or regret. Highly recommended.

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Lady of the Cards

Richard Ellmann, the biographer of W. B. Yeats and James Joyce, meets the Lady who makes Oscar Wilde Playing Cards. A true story.

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Yama Uba the Zen play

Master Ikkyu Sojun supposedly wrote a Noh play called «Yama Uba» to explain how Zen functions. The play, introduced to the world by Daisetz Suzuki, is now adapted into a modern English theatre piece by Naoto Matsumoto. In fact, it is very easy to understand how Zen works. Read «Yama Uba the Zen play» and see it for yourself!

Read this play on Zen!

«Yama Uba the Zen play»

Some people argue that it was Komparu Zenchiku who did it, but others believe that Master Ikkyu Sojun wrote the Noh play called «Yama Uba» to explain how Zen functions. It doesn't matter. They are close friends and the objective was one. Both of them wanted to tell us about how zen works in a fun way. Now it is our turn to carry the same spirit and enjoy life better.